A troublemaker in the family?

It won't be from anything I've posted for darn sure. I rarely ever post to facebook as it is. I joined simply to view the pictures of my friends and grandchildren for the most part. I don't particularly care for Facebook because it makes me cringe to see that alot of people post every single detail of their personal lives and in my opinion that makes you a target for bad people. They post when they wake up, when they go to work, when they get home, when they go to bed and everything in between. I'd read an article early on that facebook is every crooks dream because of this.


Thanks everyone. Lori, I will get that book. All of your thoughts mean alot.

I have a DIL that lives for drama much the same way. Son knows I have given up trying with her...We still see him but Im sure its difficult for him...

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suz

Please, I am not trying to be harsh, just to the point..so it may sound 'edgy' but I do not mean for it to sound hateful!

Your son, chose her.
6 weeks ago, you son decided he could not live life without her so he married her.
He took and oath, made a covenant, with this woman.

Her mouth, is no surprise to him. Someone with that much pent up hate and anger would explode like Mt. Saint Helen if they held it in.
Her disrespect and hateful words, are no surprise to him.

Communicating via text / face book or any other social media is not smart.
Why people do it is beyond me.
More drama on the FB than on 4 hours of Soap Operas.

I don't fully understand the relationship......friends with her father for 35 years.....and no one saw this behavior coming? Strange.

She can destroy only what you allow her too.
She is toxic, and your son chose her.

The ENTIRE family needs to set THE SAME boundaries. No means no. Do not let her manipulate words and actions.......speak up, speak out, in love.

And don't be surprised when your son, stops speaking to you.
He chose her.

My advice?
Never, ever, ever communicate with this girl unless your son is present. Ever.
Do not communicate via face book or text or any other social media. Ever
Do not 'talk' about the girl to anyone....ever.

Read "taking the bully by the horns"
Kathy Noll
3300 Chestnut St.
Reading, PA 19605
E-mail:
kthynoll@aol.com

Kathy Noll and Dr. Jay Carter, MA PsyD has written
a self-help book, "Taking the Bully by the Horns."
They are helping kids/teens to deal with bully,
self-esteem & school violence issues. This
includes the victims, the bullies, AND the bystanders.
We've all been bullied to some extent, and we've all
seen those around us being bullied. It's time to break
the "Bully Cycle.

It's time to take those bullies by the horns!

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I am sure of two things: There is a God, and I am not Him.
The movie Rudy

Same situatio here. It took me back because I was wanting for ds to bring me home a daughter of my heart.
It's bearable for me because she still treats him well. It's been 10 years now. She drove my son in law into a near suicidal depression, and announced to both grandfatherbear and me that "we had by our actions lost 1/2 of our family". She created an alter ego on FB and has this posts by this name on every FB post she makes, applauding her actions. We know it is her because of characteristic spelling and grammar issues. She has also posted under our son's name, but again, we can tell.
It's very sad. We are here for our son, but she got him to refuse a visit from me when I take the other grandchildren back home this weekend and will be 300 miles from him instead of 1300.
I hope your DIL at least takes care of your son. I keep reminding GFB that he did CHOOSE her, and we have to comfort ourselves, that unlike his first wife, she does still take care of him.

I had a client, a Phycologist,we talked alot about this issue many here describe. She said it's a Tribal issue. Back long ago , people lived in Tribes, groups of people for saftey,community ect. Other Tribes generaly were a danger to other ones. Many People still have this outdated sence in them. They will try all kinds of ways to pull a mate into the new "Tribe" and push away out of fear. Maybe if you can remember this, it might help with you feeling like it's Your Fault, it's Not.

I guess the first thing I would do would be to "block" her on your facebook page..that way she can't read anything you post to anyone. I sure is a crazy situation..I agree with others here...your son's life is not going to be an easy one. Be there for him,grin and bear it as long as you can so you can continue to have contact with him but at some point you may have to walk away from all the drama..let your son know you will always be there for him and you love him but just can't deal with his wife.
Sorry about your fractured relationship with her father...isn't it funny how we never really know someone sometimes!

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~Teresa~


"Fears over tomorrow and regrets over yesterday are twin thieves that rob us of the moment."
Author Unknown

Never spend your money before you have it- Thomas Jefferson

You could always be respectful of her feelings and the difficulty she is having and tell her- I can see that you are having a hard time right now, please know that I am praying for you- It seems to do wonders for folks like this.

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www.MontanaSticksAndStones.com at Goshen Farm

We had this same problem. She is no longer a part of the family but, while she was, she very nearly tore it asunder. It is the "drama queen" thing, where something of high drama must be happening all the time and she had to be the center of it. I hated the divorce that eventually happened, and the fact that our son likely will never remarry and know the joy of his own children but I loved the immediate good changes that we saw in him when she was gone. I hated the changes to his personality that came from living in that mess for the 2 years that it lasted. But, he did choose her and we supported them in that marriage. Pray for her. God loves her; after all, He specializes in the unlovable and imperfect. You never know what plans He has for this little family down the road.

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This world is not my home; I'm just a'passin' through.

You've gotten lots of good (and IMHO, some questionable) advice here- so I'll just add that in-law relationships of all kinds are like trying to reconcile nations. Seriously, I have gotten more help from my years of cross-cultural training and experience than anything else. Clearly her family has a more aggressive way of dealing with their feelings than yours. And more easily gets their Feelings hurt.
We've had some in-law issues lately (with siblings) and after clearing the air, my MIL said that she realized there would be no battle without ammunition. She is the type who listens to everyone and is sympathetic to everyone. Which everyone was taking as her being on their side. She's now taken a stance of being a good listener to anything BUT one child badmouthing another. It's already made a huge difference.
So know that your clan will follow your lead, in general. You can set a tone of accepting your daughter-in-law, without accepting her behavior. Give it few years and you may have a stellar relationship with her- because you loved her "anyway".

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

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ADGA Reg. Purebred Nubian Dairy Goats & EF cross Icelandic Dairy Sheep.

Unfortunately, this *could* be my daughter you are talking about....I know it isn't but the personality you describe is the same. She has always been a drama queen that MUST have some conflict going with someone, anyone. Even as a child she tried to inspire conflict between her grandmother (my mother) and I, between my mother and her sister, between me and my husband, between her "friends". She even made up things that we had done to her. We weren't the best parents but we weren't the worst either. When she was sixteen I finally let her go live with her grandmother and she proceeded to tear her grandmother's heart out and stomp on it every opportunity. She moved out the day she turned 18 and proceeded from one relationship to the other. Most saw quickly she was bad news and dumped her.

When she married she set about alienating her husband against us telling him the same lies and more. When children came along she told them the lies as well but it never daunted them. They still loved us. Always, she wanted a free babysitter. All the time she accused us of showing preference to the older child. How could any of the things she had said we did to her as a child or even the preferential treatment of one grandchild be remotely true if she continued to leave the children with us for days on end? I sure wouldn't have left her with anyone when when she was a child even if I just suspicioned something wasn't exactly right about their treatment of her or any past children. Anyway, despite all of the past wrongs she accused us of I we were a handy babysitter and still am when it suits her needs.

So...time rolls on. Rightly or wrongly, after fourteen years and three children (ages 6-9) she divorced the father or her children and gave him primary custody. That means she gets the children every other weekend and every other Thur for three or four hours. Then she married a guy that she had been messing around with before she left her husband.

The new guy is another story in itself. When they married he told her he had a vasectomy. Nope. Now he is being accused of having fathered another child shortly before they got together. The paternity test is still out but since he told her he KNEW the child wasn't his because he had used "mind over matter" as birth control I am pretty sure what the results will be. Since she has been with him she has caught him talking up dates on the net. He has stolen a ring she bought for her now deceased grandmother and hocked it AND he hasn't held a job in over a year...not because there aren't jobs out there. He doesn't want to work.

When she met him he was a self professed gigalo (how I don't know given his looks). To top it off he is a felon (of course, he "didn't do it" ...but never-the-less he has to pay court ordered restitution. My daughter is paying that and will be paying his upcoming child support PLUS paying child support for her three kids and ALL of her and new hubby's expenses. Financially she simply can't do it but still, he has no job and is working hard (by hanging out with her all day at work making his less than business conducive presence obvious) to make her lose hers. They have borrowed money from everyone that they know and he has even tried to get her to borrow money from past boyfriends!

Still my daughter doesn't get the picture. She did leave him for a night and went back to her ex. Slept with the ex and, worse, let the children see her there getting their hopes up. She promptly went back to the gigalo the next night. The ex says she wanted to move back in with him and he told her he would help her but wasn't going to be her next man. The fact is that she never leaves a relationship without having another one to fall right into and the ex is fully aware of that. My daughter denies wanting to stay with the ex.

Through all of this she is still actively trying to tear the children from us, the grandparents. We have worked extraordinarily hard to keep in the good graces of the ex SIL because he has custody of the children most of the time. This two weeks in the summer, however, SHE and the new man have them and she is busily trying to undermine our relationship with the ex SIL. The whole situation keeps the oldest child in particular emotionally torn up and no one seems to see or care what is happening. Our hands are tied and we are entirely at her graces because of the children. Believe me, I would give anything to be able to set "boundaries" but how can you when grandchildren are at stake? I know everyone can live through two weeks (actually only one more to go) but we are forever tormented by the fact that she may eventually succeed in tearing apart the relationship we have with the ex SIL. He is out of town now so we aren't sure how he is taking the latest round of lies and finangling. If he falls for her new act. That means we would lose contact with the children. Our health is not the best and this is a constant worry. Now she is talking about having a baby with this man so...we are forever trapped.

I really need to know. How can you set boundaries when you aren't the one setting them? I feel like I have one foot in the grave because of all of this and I worry so much about not just the children but my husband (who is older than I am and in even worse health). I am just miserable most of the time and see no out. I don't even know why I shared all of this here. I guess the original post just reminded me of the "other" side of such situations.

Well, there is hope - your son did confront her on it. Maybe with time he can bring her around. My step mother has some of the same issues. We just make sure we don't take anything she says personally. We respond nicely and politely to her no matter what she says and don't spend a lot of time with her (definitely nothing more than pleasant small talk with her doing most of the talking). Keep the lines of communications open with your son and maybe have him talk to the girls father and straighten this current misunderstanding up. Anything that happens after will only pile on top of this and get worse if it's not cleaned up now (kind of like cleaning out the barn . At the same time she needs to know what is proper behavior around your family. Like my mother tells my manipulative grandmother - "If you can't be nice you need to go home" and when she won't stop my mother flat out tells her, " I love you, but you need to go home now".

Even the best in-law relationships take adjusting to. I have an awsome sil, but we have had our differences and my feelings have been hurt - but we made up and moved on. His family has drastically different ways of relating to each other and doing things. He has adjusted pretty well to us in the last 3 years. Most improtantly he adores our daughter and their 2 kids and treats them exceptionally well.

It sounds like your dil has some unresolved parental issues to work out. They might benefit from some counseling. I hope it works out for all of you.

I don't know about the exact label of the issue, but I completely agree she has some sort of mental disorder. All you do is ignore her nastiness. She can't help it, she is ill. Look at her with pity, and filter all the nasty things she does or says through the fact that she has a mental issue. Pity her, have compassion for her, but don't take anything she says personally. Do not give it any value at all. She is ill.

Don't let a mentally ill person change your opinion of anyone else. Pity her dad that he lets her manipulate him like that. Pity your son that he was unwise enough to marry a person with such an issue. She will put him through a lot in this marriage because her illness will reassert itself, pointed at him.

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Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

I love how people think facebook caused the problem. Please. It didn't. Just block her. And continue to support your son, he obviously sees the problem with her and he'll either stay with her or not. It's her stuff not yours and you are not responsible for her stuff as they say in recovery. Just try very hard not to "play" along with her and let your son deal with her. Times like these are so tough!

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Do not text or use Face Book…talk to him directly. Either call him on his cell phone at work or when you know she won’t be home. She won’t have any ammunition that way.
Don’t try to explain anything to her. Do not deal with evil. She will eventually be found out, but if you deal with her directly, you will be worn down long before then.

I'd like to point out that if you bock her from your FB page and/or call and talk to him directly, it _will_ make matters worse. She will be convinced you're trying to tell him bad things about her because you're going around her. BTDT She'll double her efforts to turn him against you so that she wins.

I don't think it's wise to bandy about Axis 2 diagnoses.

Even if you were qualified to diagnose, there certainly isn't enough information to make a definitive dx. Even if there was enough info, you haven't met this individual as her therapist, so you really have no idea as to what's going on in her head.

Most importantly, personality disorder is an extreme dx and not something that should be lightly tossed out on a public message board. If you're a qualified mental health specialist, this sort of armchair diagnosis puts you in danger of a legitimate lawsuit.

If you're NOT trained to make DSM diagnoses, please stop practicing without proper training (and a license).

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Je ne suis pas Alice

http://homesteadingfamilies.proboards.com/

Ejagno, my heart goes out to you. May God our Father bless you with wisdom as you deal with this situation, and peace in your heart as you follow His Spirit's leading.

(And I also highly recommend Cloud and Townsend's "Boundaries" series. Fantastic stuff.)

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Je ne suis pas Alice

http://homesteadingfamilies.proboards.com/

You know what, if you have been friends with her father for 35 years, you surely have his address. Why don't you write him a nice letter? He sounded way too upset to really listen to whatever you said. Please, write him and tell him IN QUOTES exactly what your Facebook message had said to your son. Tell him you are confused as to why his daughter would be upset by it, and that there is no way you could have predicted that anyone would take it the wrong way.

Say you are upset by what happened and that you think it's a shame if 35 years of friendship go down the drain due to someone else's misunderstanding. Maybe end the letter saying at the very least, you are sorry that his daughter misread your intent (do not apologize that YOU did anything wrong), and that you hope you two can make amends. And that while you dearly hope he will, should he choose not to, then you wish him well. If his anger was out of character, then maybe this is what he needs - at least you might be able to repair THIS friendship.

What's really a shame is that you are put into a position to do damage-control.

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Wise enough to know I'll never be wise enough to know it all

That book, "Boundaries?" Unless you have read the book and had to deal with DOZENS of relationships over the years, employing the methods, like I have, and been patient to see the great results? You don't have the experience to comment on the book methods or the results. There are plenty of folks who knew how to set boundaries. I didn't, so I read that book years ago. I had to deal with narcissists, passive aggressives, those with bi-polar, and the list goes on. They know where I stand!

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Christie Acres
www.SequimForLife.com
http://www.irealtyvirtualbrokers.com...lori-christie/
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SequimLiving@gmail.com